BY JORDYN TAYLOR

Last summer, Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched a series of initiatives to expand the city’s broadband capabilities—specifically when it comes to fiber connectivity. But it’s no secret the city has a long way to go before access to fiber is widespread. In Brooklyn, for example, one businessman said his DSL connection is even slower than dial-up. And in rankings recently published by New America Foundation, New York only placed tenth on an international list of cities with fastest Internet speeds.

So maybe it should come as no surprise that the people of Nunavut—Canada’s northernmost territory, with a population density of 0.052 people per square mile and whose most populous city, Iqaluit, is home to around 6,000 people—might be getting fiber connectivity before you.

According to a July 25 statement released by Arctic Fibre—a company that helps develop fibre optic telecommunications in the Canadian Arctic—“The dream of faster, more affordable and reliable broadband telecommunications to Canada’s North will move one step closer to reality in mid-August as Arctic Fibre Inc. begins its physical landing site surveys at seven locations across Nunavut and one site in Northern Quebec.”

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BY HELAINA HOVITZ

In Japan and Korea, top officials create a national governmental policy for broadband, with landlords serving as key players in the process. Many observers talk about the high-speed fiber networks in Japan and South Korea, forgetting the differences between those countries and the United States. Plus, those countries currently enjoy a number of advantages. Roslyn Layton, a doctoral fellow studying broadband at the Center for Communication, Media and Information Studies at Aalborg University in Denmark, spoke to Wired Citylast week about fiber networks in Asia.

Wired City: What advantages do Japan and South Korea have over the United States in terms of broadband?
Ms. Layton: Broadband has enabled entertainment but not employment. Broadband has enabled some industrial productivity and supports a marginal “Gangnam Style” entertainment economy in South Korea. It is estimated that performer Psy made about $8 million from his famous song [in the wake of the] 1.6 billion YouTube views and the iTunes sales. His is not a replicable business model, let alone a business case for broadband. A new report by the Korea Information Society Development Institute, “A Study on the Impact of New ICT Service and Technology on Employment,” bemoans the situation of “jobless growth.” The government is also concerned about Internet addiction, which afflicts some 10 percent of the country’s children aged between 10 and 19, who essentially function only for online gaming but not in other areas of society. To read the full story, click here.

BY JORDYN TAYLOR

Michael Altman is not happy with his current Internet connection. Head of gourmet chocolate company Tumbador Chocolate, Mr. Altman says the fastest Internet connection offered in his workplace is—wait for it—DSL. What is this, 1999?

“The DSL line goes off often, at least twice a month for a [full] day,” Mr. Altman said. “The line has been damaged since Hurricane Sandy. We go up and down all the time, meaning we have no Internet, or the Internet is so slow that dial-up is faster…When you have no Internet you might as well close and run away.”

The problem is that Tumbador Chocolate is a small business located in Industry City: a Brooklyn industrial complex filled with warehouses and manufacturing plants. Mr. Altman says his service provider, Verizon, is overlooking the up-and-coming businesses that exist there, too.

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